Hej Lisa Yes apparently Houston is pronounced or at least was pronounced Hogston in Caithness. I have come across several instances in my research which for Scotland is mostly from Caithness. It can even be spelt that way in earlier records. Maryann ----- Original Message ----- From: "Lisa Conrad" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, May 25, 2005 6:00 PM Subject: [Orkney] HOGSTON vs. HOUSTON > > Would SKS know if there was any way that the pronunciation of HOUSTON > could > ever be misheard or misconstrued by someone hearing this surname said out > loud, as sounding like "HOGSTON" (in reference to clerks or ministers that > notated BMDs in the 19th-century OPRs in particular)... > > > I have transcripts from statutory death registers, dated 1887 and 1897, > that > list a woman's maiden surname as "HOUSTON"... and yet her 1835 marriage > entry in the Old Parish Register distinctly has her surname as "HOGSTON". > > I guess what I am asking, and it is a long shot, is: how does one > pronounce > "Hogston" in Caithness (from whence this woman came)... is it "Hog-ston", > rhyming with "Fog- etc." ? > Or could Hogston in some way sound like "Houston"? > > > Thank you! > > - Lisa > > > ==== ORKNEY Mailing List ==== >>>>> Orkney list now has 329 subscribers <<<<< > > ============================== > View and search Historical Newspapers. Read about your ancestors, find > marriage announcements and more. Learn more: > http://www.ancestry.com/s13969/rd.ashx > >

Hi Maryann - You write just as I was going to post an "update" to my Query! Coincidence... At any rate, yours was the only response from the ORKNEY-List thus far, besides a response from a researcher friend I asked via private email, but both of you pretty much had the same answer... my friend said: "The Hogston name seems to be a Caithness thing. Except for the children of George Hogston, there are no Hogston births on South Ronaldsay, and no occurences in the census records. Except for the South Ronaldsay births (Caithness-origin family), there are only about five IGI entries in Scotland outside of Caithness, and all those were in 1700s. It might be partly a matter of pronunciation or accent..." My conclusions, after scouring some of the South Ronaldsay OPRs for this Hogston family, is that, indeed, Mary's surname was most likely Hogston at her birth, and it definitely was at her marriage... but she chose to 'change' it to the spelling of "Houston" at some point after her marriage to William Wards [son of John Wards, Ann Ross] in 1835. I could not find Mary Hogston's birth in the So Ronaldsay OPRs, but from reading the other entries for her some of her siblings, I am gathering that there may have been some sort of change-over of either Session Clerks, or Session books, in the early 19th-century on So. Ronaldsay [circa 1808], and it was with inconsistency that several baptisms were or were not "re-notated" into the predominant book... it looks as if Mary's may birth entry may have fell by the wayside, but most of her siblings' births were transfered to the newer book. Hard to pinpoint Mary Hogston/Houston's birth year exactly, as along the way, in the censuses for So Ronaldsay, she "decided" to vary her age a bit [looks as if she was a few years older than Wm Wards]. Anyway, thank you for your help! Hope this info can in some way help someone researching this Line. - Lisa {> on 5/28/05 4:49 AM <} M Rosie wrote -- Hej Lisa Yes apparently Houston is pronounced or at least was pronounced Hogston in Caithness. I have come across several instances in my research which for Scotland is mostly from Caithness. It can even be spelt that way in earlier records. Maryann